Scarecrow in Gray [Paperback]

Barry Yelton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2006

We ran headlong across the fields. Minie balls filled the air with that strange, buzzing sound. Every now and again I could feel the air whip my neck as one flew close by. One of the balls ripped a chunk out of my left ear. Dirt flew up all around us where balls struck the ground. Men were dropped everywhere, most dead where they fell.

A peaceful hill country farmer from North Carolina, Francis Marion Yelton, is torn from his beloved family and thrust into the barbarity of America’s deadliest conflict: the War Between the States. Forced to become a soldier and fight a war in which he has no stake, Francis struggles to come to grips with his new role.

Blood and battle threaten to transform Francis from a man of peace to a brutal warrior, and he struggles to hold on to his ideals. Wracked with doubt and guilt, tormented by the violent acts he has been forced to commit, Francis looks to his faith in God and to the memory of his devoted wife and loving children to sustain him through the dark night of war’s insensate butchery.

Battle after battle, through hailstorms of lead and waves of cold steel, Francis fights to survive. Will he ever see home again?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Barry D. Yelton has been an avid student of the Civil War for fifteen years. He holds a degree in political science with a minor in history and English. Yelton, who lives in Rutherford County, North Carolina, is married and has three children and four grandchildren.

Product Details

• Paperback: 218 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595401856
• ISBN-13: 978-0595401857
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,793,815 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Soul of Bruce Catton, October 23, 2007

By 

Floyd M. Orr "Nonfiction in a Fictional Style" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scarecrow in Gray (Paperback)

The title of Barry Yelton's Scarecrow in Gray is derived from the impression of the condition of the Confederate soldiers as described by a new recruit, Francis Yelton, the author's great-grandfather. The book is a personal, emotional tale of the new private's adventures during the final year of the Civil War, in which the men were all so starved they looked like scarecrows. Many plot elements have already been discussed in detail in other reviews, so I shall not repeat them again.

With the exception of many omitted commas and other minor editing details, Scarecrow in Gray is a very professionally composed and packaged product. The elegant cover and the blurbs on the back adequately reveal the context of the story contained inside. The past tense, matter-of-fact, monolog nature of the author's writing style could have displayed a bit more punch; however, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the plot itself. Barry takes the reader right into the muck of it all with a lead character who is as compassionate as he is dangerous to those who display less than scrupulous character traits. Sometimes the enemy is not wearing blue, and Mr. Yelton does a fine job of describing such situations.

The best thing I can say about Barry Yelton's poignant first novel of historical fiction is that he has brought the ghost of Bruce Catton back to life. Catton has always been heralded as the best storyteller of tales of The War Between the States, with a personalized compassion brimming from every book. His books may not have been the most factually correct history tomes, but they placed the reader right on the battlefield. Barry Yelton's first novel is much shorter, and with somewhat less description, than Catton's legendary books, but Scarecrow in Gray takes the reader into the human soul in much the same manner.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Both beautiful and terrifying... and a painful reminder, September 22, 2007

By 

Kathleen Valentine "Passionate Writer, Passio... (Gloucester, MA, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Scarecrow in Gray (Paperback)

The first thing you realize as you read Barry Yelton's prose is that he is a skillful craftsman with a gift for lyrical description. I am not a big fan of books about war but this story is deeply moving because it is less the story of a war than it is the story of how an honorable and good man endures such a thing.

Francis Yelton is not the sort of man who should ever have to be a soldier. He is a farmer, a loving husband, a devoted father and a man of Faith. Yet he is in that terrible position of having to fight because, if he does not, how can he continue to be all of those other things he defines himself as? Yelton is an inherently good man, that is the thing that makes his position so difficult. He doesn't want to fight and he has no use for the sorts of atrocities and inhumanities that happen in war --- rape and murder and inconscionable behavior. But he holds fast to his personal dignity, sometimes in the face of terrible circumstances. Through battle after battle we see him travel farther and farther from his life as father/husband/farmer and yet he perseveres.

This book is more an homage to the nobility of a man in a very bad situation than anything else. Author Yelton, who wrote the book based on the life of an ancestor, has given literature a protrait of a decent, strong, and ultimately triumphant man. In this era of war that we live in, it is a powerful statement about what we ask of men who fight, and what it can do to them. A message we need to be reminded of again and again.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Man's Duty to the Land He Loves, July 19, 2007

By 

D. Salerni (Chester County, Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scarecrow in Gray (Paperback)

A North Carolina farmer goes off to fight a war in which he has no stake in this historical novel of the Civil War. It is the final months of a war reaching its inevitable conclusion, and most people know the Southern cause is already lost when Francis Yelton enlists against his better judgment. He is not a slave owner, nor has he any interest in the politics of the failing Confederate government. But the rebel army is desperate for men and if Francis does not volunteer, he will be conscripted. The author's elegant prose brings a poetic quality to this well-written novel. Francis, an ordinary but insightful man, sees the beauty of the land around him more clearly than most and recognizes the devastation of war as a grievous insult to the Earth and its Maker. He questions his reasons for being on the battlefield, comparing himself to a leaf floating in a river:

"The leaf doesn't have a say in where it's going. It just goes because a greater power takes it."

While Francis reluctantly shoulders his musket to shoot men just like himself, he worries about his home and his family, who must survive in a hostile world without him. Thanks to General Sherman's "scorched earth policy," Francis knows exactly what the enemy could do to his farm. But Southern deserters and outlaws pose just as great a threat. Scarecrow in Gray is a worthy read - the story of a war already lost and the men who knowingly served the losing side in defense of the land and the people they loved.